I was waiting at the pharmacy in the government hospital for my medication. My number was 4103, the current number was 4075, There was a sign stating that the average waiting time was 60 minutes. I took a quick timer and noticed that the number moved up on average almost 2 minutes. So for 33 numbers x 2 min = 66 minutes… Good thing I brought a book. Half through the wait, I realized that this waiting period is not much different from a customer waiting for his order in a restaurant, or a buyer waiting for his delivery.

First thought I had was what a company could (or should) do was that it should make their process efficient, to make it as fast or as cheap as possible. I stared through the window and wondered how the pharmacy staff could do it faster. Interestingly, I couldn’t. They seemed to be moving around, not dilly dallying, not using mobile phones or any distractions. They were doing what they can, as humanly as possible. My wife mentioned though that they may just be taking so much time trying to figure out what the doctors wrote on their prescriptions. :p

Then I remembered a Tedtalk on a box-packing company, that dealt with thousands of orders a day. On how they used robotics to streamline the system. I’m sure that they used other technologies like barcodes or RFID’s. How fast would that be if that was applied to the pharmacy. Where I noticed there were 30 people served perhour x 9 hours = 270 people per day! and that’s just for that one clinic, there are other clinics around Brunei.

But then I wondered, how much would it cost the government to upgrade their systems to be implemented. How much would it cost for companies to make their efficiency? would it be worth the cost? How fast would it make it anyway? How fast would make it cost effective. Fast food restaurants have this down pat. Food that may take 15 minutes, can be had for less than 5 minutes. Then I realize that sometimes a good product will take its time. That there will be a limit to how fast we can make or serve something, human or technological.

Then I remembered a Tedtalk from an Advertising man where he mentioned instead of spending millions to speed up a train, the company can spend 100 of thousands on entertainment, and the customers would probably even want the train to slow down.

We can either increase the speed or the quality of service or both. But it depends on the purpose or the intention. The point of business is to serve the customer, to fulfill their needs. If they need speed, we serve them with speed, but if they need value, provide them with value.

Update 28 March 2017

recently i had an accident that require me to go to the hospital, twice this year. the waiting time is still there. but what has change to my surprise is that now they have Coffee Bean! they also have introduced other facilities. waiting time is the same, but customer experience have elevated! Well Done MOH!

I recently needed to edit a file. I could only find the picture format. There was a lot of text to by retyped.. So I was a bit exasperated thinking of the task at hand. Then I realize, computers are smart, there are tools that can do this. But I didn’t want the hassle of downloading and installing an app. So I searched for Optical Character Recognition (OCR) apps online. and I found one and used it. It saved me a lot of effort and time.

It is rare for me to read up about a Bruneian who had left Brunei and lived overseas and make something out of their life. Hope to see more of them. Unfortunately it seems that these individuals often find that they are valued more elsewhere and they stay there. Talk about Brain Drain. We need to keep this people here in Brunei, but if the country is not ready for them then it is our lost.http://www.bt.com.bn/features/2011/08/06/life-coach-brisbane

In this amendment there are a few changes to customs and excise rates. to be honest I never knew the different between customs duty and excise tax, I thought they come hand in hand. apparently there is a distinction.